The Fast Food 50: List of the Nation's Biggest Chains Released

Depending on whom you ask you, you may hear them called the Fortune Fifty, the French-Fried Fifty, or the You're-Making-Us-Fat Fifty. It's the newly released list of the nation's 50 Biggest Fast-Food Chains, as compiled by QSR, a trade publication that covers the quick-service-restaurant industry.

Their annual QSR 50 is the fast-food world's answer to the Fortune 500, and no matter what you call it, it's big business. At first glance, the 2011 list yields few surprises. Topping the list for most U.S. sales is McDonald's with $32,395 million in 2010. Although Subway made headlines this spring for surpassing McDonald's as the world's largest restaurant chain (having taken the lead in number of U.S. outposts in 2002), the second-place finisher on the QSR list trails in sales, bringing in about a third of the Golden Arches' business at $10,600 million. McDonald's has fewer restaurants than Subway (14,027 versus 23,850, respectively), but the average individual McDonald's store brings in more than five times as much money as its sandwich-making rival.

Rounding out the top five are the usual suspects: Burger King, Wendy's, and Starbucks. The top ten, which also includes Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Sonic, has not changed since the 2010 survey. Although all of the restaurants on the 2010 list made the 2011 version, there were a few shake-ups. The roast beef chain Arby's fell from number 11 to number 14, having lost 69 stores since 2009. Jimmy John's, an Illinois-based sandwich franchise, went up five spots from number 34 in 2010 to 29 this year. After a banner year on the stock market, Chipotle switched places with Quiznos, moving from number 21 last year to 18 this year. The toasted sandwich chain suffered, having shuttered 600 stores since 2009, the most units closed of any chain on the list.

And while it only hit a middling number 30 on the QSR index, perhaps the year's biggest winner was the foodie darling Five Guys, up twelve spaces from number 42 last year. The rapidly growing Virginia-based burger chain added 195 stores since 2009, the third-largest restaurant growth during the two-year period, following the big guys, Subway and Dunkin' Donuts, and trouncing McDonald's, which only added 47 units during the same time period.

Posted by Katie Robbins

She has written for Saveur, Psychology Today, BlackBook, theatlantic.com, and LA Weekly's blog, Squid Ink, among other publications. Although her writing is generally of a culinary persuasion, she has covered issues such as the New Orleans school system, America's health insurance crisis, and the Secret Service for PBS NewsHour, ABC News, and the National Geographic Channel.
While hard-pressed to pick an actual favorite, some foods that stand out in her memory as exemplary are rabbit escabeche in Ushuaia, Argentina; Russ and Daughters' white fish salad in New York City; kua kling phat tha lung (dry beef curry) in Los Angeles; and mustard based barbecue in Columbia, SC. Read More

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